


Selfishness

by grainjew



Series: Renewal [1]
Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: (also this isn't shippy b/c I hc will as asexual aromantic), (really really strongly), (sorry), Fix-It, Gen, Post-Canon, and one of them has pretty much sworn allegiance to the other, bran and will's relationship is what I LIVE for, listen i'm SO WEAK for relationships where they both trust eachother SO MUCH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 12:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7438316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Bran is still the Pendragon, despite everything, and Will is by his own estimates entirely too human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selfishness

**Author's Note:**

> I started this in, uh, January, hell maybe even December, and only just got around to finishing it tonight, oops. It's part of a web of headcanons I have for postcanon tdir, what I call the renewalverse, but you really don't need to know any of that going into this. Especially because all the other fics in it are _also_ incomplete. At any rate, I hope you enjoy my contribution to this fandom's longstanding tradition of fix-it fic! Thanks for reading!

Will keeps an eye on them as the years pass, of course, watches them settle into human life, ordinary life. Watches, always watches.

Simon bounces for awhile, unable to make up his mind about what he wants to become; a doctor, a lawyer, an actor, an electrician are all considered and then discarded, and then he settles, cautiously, as an engineer. He marries, a few years later, obtains a cactus for the kitchen table, buys ferns and some lilacs and starts keeping a windowsill garden, and seems as satisfied as he can be with his life, niggling doubts aside.

Jane jumps into life, searching, desperately, for a mystery on the edge of her memory, just around the next hill. She falls in love with a fellow archaeologist in university, a Ghanian woman with a smile in her eyes and a hijab over her hair, and they travel the world together. Will meets them infrequently, by chance or by design as they flitter across the globe, drinking in sights and caught up in each other's company. She seems happy, if always searching, always a little bit haunted by what she cannot know.

Barney, eyes wide to the world, paints and draws and dreams, caught in a longing for what was. Will has seen some of his pieces, eerily reminiscent of their childhood adventures, stark and magical and all-too-real. He starts to research folklore, mythology, incorporates it into his work deliberately now, clear-seeing mind haunted as Jane but coping through creation rather than a wild, futile hunt. 

And Bran...

Will watches as Bran tries to stay a humble sheepherder in the mountains of his home, and then, almost accidentally, falls into politics and finds in himself a natural capacity for navigating the twists and turns and treacherous drops of it. It hurts Will to look sometimes, to see his easy arrogance, the tilt of his chin as he looks at a crowd, owl's eyes and skin so startlingly white he seems to be glowing. He watches anyways, despite the pain, watches this man who would be his liege, his king, and who looks so much like the Lord of the High Magic he could have been that it sometimes makes Will want to cry. 

He finds himself in Bran's appartment, one evening, slipping past the locked door and sitting down, casual, on the soft green armchair, the only chair in the room. It's a small place, and sparsely decorated--it's clear that Bran doesn't consider the place home, just a place to rest and store his documents in between busy days of work. Will doesn't really know what he's doing here, why he's come--he hasn't seen Bran in a year now, and the last time was a hurried conversation over brunch, half coincidence--but he trusts his instincts.

Bran walks in through the front door just then, preoccupied, and it takes him a few steps before he spots Will half-slouched on his armchair. He tenses, reaching instinctively to his side as though for a sword that is not there, and then relaxes minutely as he recognizes Will. "What are you doing here?"

Will takes a moment to think over his answer, and decides on the truth, or as much of it as he can give. "I'm not quite sure."

"Will..." Bran's voice is familiar, puzzled. He sits down on the coffee table. "There are alarms. How did you-- nevermind." He sighs, gets up. "Tea?"

"Please," says Will, and makes no move to follow Bran as he walks to the kitchen, puts the kettle on. 

Will waits, trying to make sense of his impulses.

“I’ve been dreaming,” Bran says abruptly a few minutes later, steaming mugs in hand. He leans down and hands one to Will, then stands against the wall, slouching casually and staring at him. He has taken his sunglasses off, and his eyes are brilliantly gold.

“What about?” says Will, though he already knows. 

“Us. As kids,” Bran says. “Some sort of delusions of grandeur or something. It’s stupid, anyway. Just dreams. Don’t know why I brought it up.”

Will takes a sip of tea, cooling it a little with a thought so as to not scald his tongue. “I’m certain that it’s not stupid.”

Bran looks at him a little oddly. “I…” he hesitates, and Will notices that they’ve fallen back into the easy trust of friendship as though they had last spoken yesterday. “That’s what my instincts are telling me, but--”

Will should discourage this. He really should. Bran chose to be human, and should not have to spend his life being haunted by the knowledge of what could have been. Instead he says, “Go on.”  _ He didn’t choose to forget _ , Will justifies to himself, but he knows that he is being selfish and very, very human.

Bran shrugs, helplessly. “What else can I say? The dreams are misty by the time I wake. Part of me insists that they are incredibly important, the rest of me insists that I am being an idiot.”

“You’re not being an idiot,” says Will, then plunges on in spite of all his misgivings. “What do you remember?” I want my best friend back, says Will the human being, unhappily, and Will the Old One, who misses the Pendragon, relents a little. “From the dreams,” he clarifies.

“I,” says Bran. “Not much. You are always there, and there is a bright-burning sword, and a quest, and some other people, I think the Drews? I haven’t talked to them in years.”

“The Drew siblings would be there, yes,” says Will, choosing his words carefully. He takes another sip of tea, trying to think.

“You know something about this,” says Bran, tone sudden-suspicious, almost accusing, and  _ oh _ , that hurts. Will looks up at Bran, who is still lounging against the wall, stance newly tense, and says nothing. That only seems to confirm Bran’s suspicions. “What is it you know?” Amber eyes pin Will to the armchair, and he knows that if Bran asks-- _ commands _ \--him again, he will tell him everything. A dangerous situation, but that is how it always has been with Bran. (He knows that this is why he has been half-avoiding him for years, and feels a small swirl of regret.)

“I--”

“ _ Tell me _ ,” says Bran.

Will ducks his head. He says, yielding, “Very well,”  _ my lord _ . He stands. “Perhaps it would be better to simply show you,” he adds, and then as Bran nods bewilderedly he searches his mind for the words in the Old Speech. Finding them, he points a stiff-fingered hand at Bran and whispers the phrase, then closes his eyes to wait. He knows that the spell will work, but yet the human part of him is tense, impatient, and he waits desperately for some sign that Bran remembers.

He hears after a moment a small wondering gasp, and then there is a touch on his outstretched arm, light, and he opens his eyes to Bran's own tawny gaze, looking at him with new understanding. "Old One," he says softly, as though testing out the word. " _ Dewin _ . Thank you." The look in his eye is high, noble, his stance a king's, even in gratitude. 

Will finds himself dropping to his knees on the carpeted floor, the movement unconscious but somehow incredibly  _ right _ in a way that he hasn’t felt in years. "My lord."

"Will," says Bran, hesitant, his easy stance faltering a moment. He looks uncertain.

Will looks up at him. "Bran Pendragon. My liege. My king." He pauses, then says, all in a rush, "I missed you, Bran.”

Bran says, voice wondering, “I did too, Will.” He looks at Will a moment more, emotions crossing his face faster than Will can read. “Rise,” he says at last. “You needn’t kneel to me, Old One.”

Will scrambles up, hardly daring to breathe for fear that this is a dream, and then grins suddenly, and then Bran is grinning back and hugging him like they’re long-lost friends, and Will feels like he might burst from happiness. 

They break apart, settle themselves on the armchair--Will perched on the arm of it, Bran in the chair itself--and Will cannot, will not, make his smile fade entirely. 

“Do the Drews remember?” Bran asks abruptly, once they’ve settled down, mugs of tea forgotten on the coffee table with Bran’s sunglasses .

Will blinks. “No.”

“They deserve to know. They had even less choice than I.” 

Will says, “Yes.” Then he adds, “My family knows now, has known. I followed my instinct then, just as now. I made a choice on impulse, and it turned out better than I could have hoped. But… nothing has called me towards the Drews.”

“It will happen,” Bran says, with the surety of a statement of truth. “You will cause them to remember, and we will be five again.”


End file.
